JOHN BULL'S SCHOOLDAYS

Such Dreamy Jazz

By 1A1N HAMILTON 1 Beyond the river lay the Campsies Stretched like a screen on which the cloud Brushed secret signals while an Avro Sloped to the airfield, buzzing loud, And underneath a brand-new bonnet I was buzzing too. 'But aren't you proud,' Said Jenny, `to be going to school? I wish I was your age again!' My hand within her hand was damp. 'Wish we could go and get a train To Princes Pier and the paddle-boats.' I wished my wishing wasn't all in vain.

Smoke from the Works crept up the street And steamships groaned from Cart and Clyde, And teacher waited by the gate To shoo the new year's clutch inside. I wet my pants and was denounced By the nasty little nyaff I sat beside.

But I was a brighter boy than he. So I became the teacher's pet.

She had a blunt and breezy face And a bit of a tooth was black as jet. Her breath was queer and when I hear The squeak of chalk on slate I smell it yet.

LI Daddy MacMickle was seven feet tall. Daddy MacMickle had fought on the Somme.

Daddy MacMickle kept us douce With tales of shell and mortar-bomb And rifle-fire and trench and wire And the shauchly Gorbals serjeant, Archie Gomme.

The cludgies stank and had no doors; On the stippled concrete cannibals reeled; And there I learned the cunning art Of judging when a smout must yield To keelies, or, if pressed too far, Of kicking hard and foul in the fighting- field.

III Up and on and the world grew wider. Over the hills my spirit soared. 'Scotland! Scotland! Little we're due ye, Poor employ and skim-milk board.' Maybe so, but the past possessed me: Gaelic bias, the pipe, the Spanish sword.

Such dreamy jazz is bad for boys With no idea where they're going. When ancient 011ie's pointer probed, Down Chiscan banks my thoughts were flowing. 'Heh! You think you're smart, my lad, But you'll not get on without the means of knowing.' IV I saw John Bull at Bellochantuy. His tweed was rough, his kilt was red. Out of his mouth came 'Yaw, yaw, yaw,' And `Lah-di.clah,' his lady said.

An antique bile glucked in my throat. A tinker grinned and slyly tapped his head.

V Horo the heroes! Sixteen years Of age, they swaggered to the park Where, followed by my loving eyes, They'd kick a ball until the dark Came sifting down on Renfrew town And lured them after birds to have a lark.

Ach, what did I know of all that then, The joys of long lnchinnan Road, Where Black Cart boils as clear as beer And White Cart rolls its pungent load Of sewage to the salty Clyde, And boys and girls try out the well-tried mode?

VI Goodbye to Elementary. Let Paisley Grammar open, please, Its gates to brainy babyface. Roger Armfelt paid the fees When Great-Aunt Belle, his mother, died.

She'd said: 'Now here's a chance that you must seize.'

When I was young I had no sense, But only senses reaching out To all the wonders of the world Which I drew in with an inward shout And turned to music. Never once I hoped for victory or feared a rout.

The school in rosy sandstone stood. Disce puer aut abi!

Was looped around the badge. And true, I learned and stayed, but carelessly, Without a thought of 'getting on.'

Past and present alone were true to me. Winkle's Latin ran like honey; Larry's Greek was clear and quick; 'Monsieur au coin,' cried Biddy, 'are you Deaf or dead or shamming sick?' Simmy ground his teeth because I Couldn't get past his plain arithmetic.

VII Dad, my grandfather, was hale And Highland and he wrought like hell In the smoking Works; and Grannie was Gentle and deaf and none too well; And Mother worked in Hendersons' From half-past-eight until the closing bell.

At every corner whey-faced mufflered Men stood shuffling all the day; And when 1 asked why Dad was often Drawn and vexed, he would not say. We were lucky; I didn't know it: Thinking of it now, rage drains me grey.

VIII 'Leaving,' like Campbell Hay, 'these me Whose hearts are hearths that have n fire,' My dreamings daily took their course To absent Father's Lanarkshire Where curlews trilled, or farther still To Mother's salty homeland, long Kinty IX The girls filled out and the boys gre hairy. POIKILOTHRON' ATHANAT' APB, RODITA hovered over classes.

Masters got an easy laugh By picking on some ardent lout And killing him with condescending chaff.

Topsy, Dolly, lshbel, Anne, Eileen, Hilda, Kate, and Rose: Blue their coats and gold their bands, Trim their stockings, bright their shoes; Not like Ronnie Searle's, those marvels, Haughty, long of leg, and proud of nose.

Woodbines, Tizer, buns, La Vie Parisienne would constitute Lunch in a certain little shop Where swanky lads of fast repute Would gather to discuss the arts And whether Kate was dumb or Doll cute. Higher Latin, English, Greek And French would see me safely through: To what, I never paused to think, My mazy thoughts being full of you, Dear Alba, well and truly mixed With glowing dreams of girls in gold and blue. X Tha nil, tha thu, tha e, tha To Gaelic class each Tuesday night; Socials in the Trinity Hall Where a bold and bouncy fellow might Click with a girl and see her home And peck her cheek in the close's deathly light; Meetings in the hall of Buffaloes: Scotland arise: strike off the yoke 1' Sea-green pea-brae, red maccallum, Golden chips in a penny poke, Flaxen Harlow at La Scala, Ferry Road all thick with fumes of coke, And all our chatter thick with God And sex and scorn of Ramsay Mac. By the banks of Cart I sat and sighed Beside a Babcock chimney-stack Because I could not reconcile MY inward joy and outward sense of lack.

The thing I never thought to learn Was how to think as others thought. The game I never guessed was how T0 turn to cash what I was taught. Behind them all std Dad, who said: Think for yourself. The others ? Damn the lot XI Between the river plain and Paisley Rises the furrowed tree-crowned hill 9f Arkleston, and there each morning I'd dismount. Alone and still, I'd look to north and west and hear the Tempter. 'Have it all if that's your will, 'Mountain, meadow, city; only Cherish silence in your speech, Exile where you most belong, -'11tining even when you reach Without reserve and frankly towards The world, and that is all I have to teach.'

XII So though I joined the Devil's Party, Failing to take, my dear Aunt Belle, The straight and narrow track to adult Heaven from adolescent hell, ,My thanks at last to you and all Those me well. good and patient men who wished